Posts Tagged → dump
I saw China dumping today
Today, I saw tangible evidence of China just outright dumping its products at give-away prices, way below manufacturing cost. It was such a dramatic sight that it made me wonder why they are doing this. Come along with me on this trip, and see what conclusions you come to yourself about what we see together.
This morning I arrived at the Pine Run Auction in Linden, PA, good and early. Got my bidder card, #6, and walked around, looking at the items coming up for auction starting at 9:00am. Nearly everyone in attendence looked the same, dressed the same, was the same age. It was humorous, because when I threw on clothes this morning, I thought surely I would be overly rustic. Nope. We all looked the same, all the old rural northcentral Pennsylvania guys. Well, “old” is a relative thing; I was one of the younger men there. And the truly young were in their forties…..
Among the rusty old American farm machinery, tri-axles, crates of machinery attachments, tools, the almost-retired CAT excavators and the chipping and peeling John Deere bulldozers, lay piles, literally piles, heaps, of shrink-wrapped brand-new Chinese made machines. I mean piles. Brand new.
Being sold by the bushel.
Mini excavators and their extra attachments, mini skid steers, machines designed for the enterprising individual American man, sold for a few hundred dollars each. Barely their value as scrap steel. Photos below, if you doubt me.
Begging the question: What is China doing? Why are they taking these huge losses? Is China being beaten down by American tariffs, as our president said they would? Is China’s economy in free-fall? Is China in big economic trouble?
Or is China so wealthy and successful that they can afford to literally just give away their most expensive consumer products, at this huge loss? Imagine all of the myriad other little auction houses like Pine Run, all across America, all auctioning off these same machines, attachments, for pennies. This is a huge amount of steel, rubber, hydraulic fittings, and petroleum stuff being just wholesale dumped across America, by our biggest frenemy.
My impression is that this is the behavior of a drowning person.
Pine Run Auction of Linden, Pennsylvania, might be just one molecular data point in a galactic constellation of economic activity data points generated by one and a half billion human beings (America plus China). But there are calculus equations for calculating the slope (the direction) of a single data point, and while I can barely do one plus one type calculus, my gut instinct about today’s Pine Run Auction is that the Chinese economic slope is heading in a severe angle straight toward the planet’s surface in a huge flaming fireball.
Part of the bidding gang. A lot of bidders participated by Proxibid
Chinese mini excavators that should have cost thousands of dollars, sold for huundreds each.
Steel attachments for the Chinese-made excavators, many of which sold for more than the matching machine, because they will be re-fabricated and adapted for other American machines
Interesting concept, a mini-skid steer. Stacks of them. Selling for hundreds of dollars. How much did China pay to make these, versus how many pennies did they get back?
Cowboy hats and bib overalls, rural America, baby. Way off in the distance Bald Eagle Mountain is visible through the open bay doors